in memoriam

When I was 14, my Aunt Jeanine died of cancer. She’d apparently battled the disease for nine years, but I only knew about it during the last year or so of her life. I didn’t even know that she was wearing wigs until Dad and I went to her house to pick up furniture. (I no longer remember why we did this, but it might have been because she was taking care of things prior to her passing.) I was a pretty typical teenager and wore a lot of buttons with fun and sarcastic sayings on them, like “Is there life after high school?” I remember asking my dad if I should give one of my fun buttons to my aunt to cheer her up. He smiled in a way that I now recognize as wistful and said no. Only now, a little more than 18 years after Aunt J’s death, do I really realize how little I understood back then about death and its effects on a family.

Even though I didn’t really know my dad’s oldest sister, it obviously still sucked that she was dying. I was primarily affected by the way it broke apart my dad. My bedroom was across the hall from my parents’ room and one night, Dad woke me up by yelling out, “I just can’t take it anymore!” and bursting into tears. I guess Mom calmed him down because he got quieter, but I still remember lying in the dark, eyes wide, wondering what in the hell was happening.

At the time, I was a sophomore in high school and Dad would pick me up after he got off work, which left me a couple hours to browse through the library and work my brief work-study shift in the school office. I picked up The Talisman (Stephen King/Peter Straub) that year and read it in fascination. The main character is charged with a quest to bring back a talisman that will save his mother. Who’s dying. Of cancer. The book remained one of my favorites until recently. I reread it a few months ago and it was good, but it wasn’t the book I’d remembered. All things become glossy and glorious in memory though, I suppose.

Sometimes after Dad picked me up, we’d stop to visit Aunt Jeanine in the hospital. Like I said, I barely knew her. The family, like most families, only got together at holidays. We’d all cram into my grandparents’ small farmhouse and make awkward conversation with one another, our outfits the only clue as to what holiday we were gathered to celebrate. In the hospital, I’d sit in a chair across from her bed and listen as Dad baby-talked to Aunt J. in her drug-induced haze. She’d often ask Dad what time or day it was and he’d tell her, only to repeat the answer a few minutes later. The cancer had metastasized and it was only a matter of time before she passed.

Aunt J. was a chain smoker, as many people in my family (including me) have been or are. Apparently my dad used to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day, which I can’t even fathom. No worries – I’m not about to go into an anti-smoking tirade, especially because I tend to partake of nicotine when I’m stressed out or depressed. (There’s only so much food a gal can eat.) Smoking is just about the only thing I can remember about my aunt, other than her bawdy laugh and how I never really understood how she and Dad came from the same parents. They just seemed so different.

Aunt J. passed away five days before my birthday. My parents had already planned a trip to Florida to celebrate my 15th year and Thanksgiving and just to get away from the stress that cancer was causing in our family. We went ahead and went on the trip. We stayed at a resort and went to Disneyland. The trip should’ve been fun, but I only remember a few things with any clarity: getting one of my first periods along with my first migraine, which lasted with amazing resilience the entire week of our vacation; going on a water slide and accidentally cutting my wrist on a rock (which my adolescent-suicidal-tendency self thought was cool and maybe I could pass it off as ‘that little thing I did to myself’); and eavesdropping on my parents as they talked about what they should do about me and my weight. I was in the thick (pun intentional) of the beginnings of my eating disorder. During high school, I put on about 120 pounds. At just shy of 15, I was growing exponentially and my parents didn’t know what to do. They yelled. They screamed. They cried. They drew lines in pen on a cake so they’d know if I’d eaten any of it. They threatened to buy locks for the cabinets. They took me to a therapist who specialized in adolescent obesity. (Had the therapist not been fat and had I not known the definition of irony, it might have worked out.) The biggest problem was that I thought I was going to see a “regular” shrink. I lost and never regained some trust in my parents. Also, I was able to work that shrink like nobody’s business. I’d get him flustered and he’d end up talking about his own weight issues. I was hateful and self-righteous and so, so angry. And I didn’t care. To say that my adolescence was a difficult time is an understatement. Add to that my parents nearly divorcing, my brother often getting into trouble, my teen angst poetry that talked about how I was going to kill myself, and the fact that my grandparents were about to lose their first child. When most people say they wouldn’t relive their adolescence even if they were paid to do so, I really mean it.

On Wednesday, the ‘anniversary’ of Aunt J’s passing, I thought about going into Dad’s office and saying something comforting, e.g., “I remember your sister” or “I think about her a lot” or “I’m sorry for your loss.” None of the words sounded right and so, again, for probably the 10th year in a row, I let November 15 slide by with nary a comforting word to my father. I also avoid saying anything to Dad because I’m just not sure any of us needs or wants to even remember that time. Perhaps there is absolution in silence.